Group of Interest: Model United Nations

Model United Nations (UN) is a club that allows students to participate in different debates and conferences mimicking the United Nations. Their goal is to create peace through this educational environment. People from different areas chose to represent a certain country or political leader. Junior and club participant Stuart Sones said the club hopes to create solutions to many problems the world leaders deal with today.

“Model UN is a student club similar to Speech and Debate or Mock Trial that mimics United Nations, the international organization dedicated to world compliance to solve issues, conventions and caucuses,” Sones said. “Model UN aims to create an educational environment in which students can debate formally, research diverse, international topics, and make friends. Basically, kids from different cities sign up to represent a country or political figure to debate on current global issues and eventually develop a resolution to the problems world leaders are facing today.”

Club President and sophomore Musa Khan said Model UN has students advocate for not their own beliefs, but instead for the beliefs of the country they represent, in order to gain knowledge of worldwide issues.

“In Model UN, students play the role of delegates from the different nations within the United Nations body with one student representing one nation,” Khan said. “Being delegates, the students have to advocate in the view of the nation they are representing not their own personal beliefs on the current events issues that are discussed during a committee session.”

According to Sones, the accepting setting of Model UN creates a place for students to express their ideas regarding world problems. The hope of the club is not only to develop resolutions to problems going on today, but to encourage students to become involved and make a change in their community and internationally, Sones said.

“I find that Model UN not only creates an enjoyable learning environment, but also a environment to bolster acceptance of other cultures and a climate that encourages kids to think about the world, coming up with solutions to the world’s most complex situations,” Sones said. “Most importantly, it encourages kids to get involved to make change in their communities or internationally. For example, at Miami University’s conference, we developed resolutions to solve the Syrian Refugee Crisis in Europe and solutions to defeat ISIS.”

Khan said he restarted the club because of the need he saw in Mason High School to gain experience in public speaking and debating.

“I joined (and restarted) the Model UN program because I felt that it was a necessity to have a Model UN club in the school,” Khan said. “Many nations in the East Coast and Northeast region hold several international Model UN conferences and I felt that it was important for students at MHS to receive the valuable experiences that they obtain from competition and their development as public speakers and debaters.”

Through his experiences with Model UN, Sones said, he was able to gain a new perspective on the world and gain knowledge as well. In the future, he further hopes to make change, that stemmed from the conferences he’s attended.

“Through research and debate, my world perspective has expanded as I’ve learned a lot about foreign policy since the first conference,” Sones said. “This knowledge has even motivated me to bring about change. I hope to organize efforts to help Syrian refugees within the next few months.”